Michigan falls short on Medicaid expansion
Misinformation is cited as one reason why Democrats couldn't pass key part of Reproductive Health Act
Michigan recently passed a series of bills that advanced reproductive rights, but lawmakers came up short when attempting to get Medicaid to pay for abortions.
That goal has long been part of the reproductive rights movement. Opponents have argued throughout the years that taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn’t have their tax payments used to pay for low-income women to have the procedure done. Proponents of these measures have said this discriminates against low-income women who wouldn’t be able to get needed medical treatment as a result of having to pay out of pocket or rely on abortion funds.
Laurie Pohutsky, Speaker Pro Tempore in the Michigan House of Representatives, talked about how the effort was primarily successful and partly why it failed.
The Reproductive Health Act repealed many of the TRAP laws, which is short for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers–an incremental approach to chipping away at abortion rights that antiabortion activists and lawyers had employed before Roe v. Wade was overturned altogether.
“The overarching theme is that we now have a constitutional amendment in Michigan that guarantees the right to reproductive freedom,” Pohutsky said. “And this makes that more accessible and more equitable by repealing old laws that are still on the books that stand in the way of that amendment.”
It disappointed Pohutsky that the Medicaid expansion didn’t pass. She said she will continue to work to get that passed.
“A right is just a right on paper, if it's not accessible to everybody, and that should not be limited by someone's income or whether they have public or private insurance,” Pohutsky. “So it's frustrating. It's disappointing, but this is certainly not the end of the story.”
What sank the effort was the lack of support coming from certain Democrats. State Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, voted against it, believing the funding either went toward that or care for the elderly. Pohutsky said it wasn’t mutually exclusive.
“It's absolutely a false equivalency,” Pohutsky said. “We can make sure that we're investing in seniors and in folks who are attempting to access abortion care at the same time.”